Harman Patil (Editor)

Interest (emotion)

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Interest (emotion)

Interest is a feeling or emotion that causes attention to focus on an object, event, or process. In contemporary psychology of interest, the term is used as a general concept that may encompass other more specific psychological terms, such as curiosity and to a much lesser degree surprise.

Contents

The emotion of interest does have its own facial expression, of which the most prominent component is having dilated pupils.

Applications in computer assisted communication and B-C interface

In a 2016 article, an entirely new communication device and brain-computer interface was developed, requiring no visual fixation or eye movement at all, that is based on covert interest in (i.e. without fixing eyes on) chosen letter on a virtual keyboard with letters each having its own (background) circle that is micro-oscillating in brightness in different time transitions, where the letter selection is based on best fit between, on one hand, unintentional pupil-size oscillation pattern, and, on the other hand, the circle-in-background's brightness oscillation pattern. Accuracy is additionally improved by user's mental rehearsing the words 'bright' and 'dark' in synchrony with the brightness transitions of the circle/letter.

Measurement of sexual interest

In social science measurement methodology, when the intensity of (sexual) interest needs to be measured, the changes in pupil size – despite its weaker, but still consistent, correlations with other measures such as self-reported measures of sexual interest's orientation – have been proposed as its appropriate measure.

References

Interest (emotion) Wikipedia